I always drive with my lights on, rain or shine. If it has allowed only one car over the years to see me that would not have otherwise seen me, if it has prevented one accident, it’s been worth every extra bulb I’ve bought. Many people don’t seen to realize that the lights not only allow you to see, they allow you to be seen.
I think it’s the Prius CAR not the person that drives ‘‘like that’’.
A family I know has three vehicles, the Pruis, an Odyssey and an Expedition .
The SAME DRIVER ( the family has four )…drives differently in different vehicles.
yep
put one in the Prius and…sure enough !
Headlights on is just logical all the way around.
my BLACK explorer…in the daytime…seemed as if it was invisible in the mirrors of vehicles ahead of me.
Mostly on I-40 while cruising along to Albuquerque and back, people would change lanes cutting me off or near-miss time after time after time. ( they could have changed lanes a half mile ago full well knowing they’re going to pass. But for the oddest unknown reason they wait till I’m on top of them…as if invisible in their 3 mirrors. )
…until I started runnig full head/fog lights in broad daylight.
From my observations after nearly 50 years of driving including 12 years and over 600,000 miles as a commercial driver I have decided that approximately 10% of drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians are “bad”. Some are aggressive, some are distracted, some are overly cautious and drive 30mph in 55mph speed zones. The remainder of the 10% for some reason simply seem incapable of operating motor vehicles, bicycles, or even “Leather Personnel Carriers” (shoes). I would expect 10% of Prius drivers to also be “bad”.
I think your percentage is optimistically low.
+1 @SgtRock - there are no more or less bad Prius drivers that others, in my experience. And I’ve seen VERY few aggressive/fast Prius drivers.
sgtrock21 writes …
I have decided that approximately 10% of drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians are "bad"... for some reason simply seem incapable of operating motor vehicles
I chuckled when I read this comment, b/c of what I saw the other day. A man was attempting to park his Nissan sedan on a busy street in front of a large public building. Parallel parking in other words. There was one space available, cars in front and behind, but it was a big space, plenty of room. For reasons unknown, he apparently decided it would be better to pull in head first rather than backing in. So he ends up with his car stuck, with the right corner nose wedged tight on the curb, and the tail end sticking out, blocking traffic, horns blaring. When I arrived on the scene of this parking disaster, he was standing there by the side of the car, his kids scattered on the sidewalk looking completely embarrassed. And him with the look “I wonder how this happened?” … lol …
Another reason for me to dislike sedan drivers…
PvtPublic My 10% estimate was for really bad drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians. There are also rather poor drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians. It is subjective.
GeorgeSanJose When I was a commercial driver I mostly drove Ford E-350 1 ton vans. Parallel parking was accomplished by rolling the appropriate front tire up on the curb, pull forward enough and roll the tire back down. Perfectly parked with a minimum of traffic back-up and horn honking. Not recommended for modern cars with 4 inch ground clearance.
“I’ve seen VERY few aggressive/fast Prius drivers.”
Come to Los Angeles
There, you will see that many/most Prius drivers are aggressively passing you doing 85. One hand is on the wheel, and the other hand is patting themselves on the back
And even when you’re not on the freeway, Prius drivers are super aggressive and fast. They probably think because they’re “saving the planet” they deserve some slack
It would be nice if the DRL’s turned on the tail lights as well, riding home with a friend we were stopped by the highway patrol for not having the tail lights on. After figuring out that the switch was in the wrong position we proved that the lights do work and we were sent on our way.
A pretty fair number of the Prius drivers around here are of the foot buried in the floor type and (for those old enough…) seem to think of themselves as members of the Joie Chitwood Thrill Show… 
I don’t hate the Prius. I just can’t stand those smug losers who drive like demons, while bragging they’re saving the planet. This was meant for them
Okay, speaking of bad drivers; this is the third day the same thing is happening. My commute in the morning hits heavy stop and go traffic on the fwy. So there is this brand new Toyota Corolla with no license plates that for 3 days in a row, just pulls in front of me when merging from another freeway. The problem is when the cars are moving at ~ 15 MPH, she will just jump in front of me and then slam on the brakes and start leaving ample amount of space ahead of her. I don’t get it, maybe she wants to be rear-ended. Sometimes I wish I had a sign that could make some announcements for other drivers.
The other days, a Ford Edge made crazy maneuvers to pass me on a surface street at 80 MPH (I am going the speed limit which was 35), then he slams on the brakes to make an illegal left turn. It was so crazy that I didn’t even bother with the horn, figured the guy is high and has a loaded gun next to him too.
Those links provided my chuckles for the evening. That person in the first one looks like the identical twin of the person here whom I mentioned driving around in an old Subaru that was smoking horribly and had all of the Greenpeace, Save The Earth, etc stickers all over the back of the car.
While not applicable to everyone, when it comes to the environment there can be a lot of hypocrisy involved.
About 15 years ago for example, one of the founders of the Detroit Project (an anti-SUV group) was being interviewd on TV and was railing about Ford Explorers and others destroying the Earth.
It was pointed out to him that sitting outside in the studio parking lot was a gas guzzling Benz that belonged to him and which he had driven there.
That led to some eye darting and some uh-uh mumbling about “well, I have a Prius on order…”.
Lying POS…
I’m thinking we may need a bad drivers, cyclists, pedestrians thread. I will start one unless I have already. I have dozens of stories and new ones nearly every day.
Diesel duallies and Prii are the epitomies of the outrageousness at opposite ends of automotive image scale and a great many owners buy them for the image.
“I’ve seen VERY few aggressive/fast Prius drivers.”Come to Los Angeles
I wonder how many of those LA Prius owners bought them only so they could use the car pool lanes?
Over 3000 lbs and 130 hp. How aggressive can a car be ? I get that they can in time, reach 85mph. But I don’t see them accelerating to pass or merge too quickly and aggressively. They must be selling a turbo add on in California where they are made with Corolla like performance on cookie cutter tires .
Has the Toyota Prius become the cult car of the present times as the VW Beetle became the cult car of the late 1950s through the 1960s?
There are a couple of things in common:
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distinctive appearance: You could not mistake a VW Beetle for anything else in its time period and today, nothing else looks like a Prius.
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the VW Beetle tended to be a car owned by college students and college professors. Today, many college students and professors drive the Prius
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economy of operation was one of the reasons the VW Beetle was a big seller in its time and certainly that is a reason behind the sales of the Prius.
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the VW Beetle was not the norm with an air cooled engine mounted in the rear and the Prius with its hybrid configuration was different than other cars when it was introduced.
I remember it being said back in the 1960s that if all the cars in the world were in a line moving down the highway, a VW would be trying to pass them all. Is the same true for today’s Prius driver?
In reality there is not sense in trying to pass the cars ahead of you with a Prius just for the sake of passing them. You will anyway while they stop for gas.